Stripe for Freelancers

One problem I repeatedly faced working with international clients with oompf different currencies is getting their money into my Australian bank account. I sell my services for being quick and responsive, and waiting a week for a deposit to land in my bank account was not helping.

The solution: Stripe.

Clients from all over the world can now pay me using their credit card and I can get to work for them as good as instantly. Best of all, it only took me less than 30 minutes to set up. See it in action here: https://payments.createdbydanielle.com/.

For those of you that don’t know it, Stripe is the awesome online payments start-up from the US that takes all the hassle out of setting up online payment gateways. Their pricing is simple: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. That works out to be quite a chunk, but with currency conversions and rates for international transactions, it usually works out just about the same.

But isn’t Stripe for online shops? Don’t I need a developer to set it up for me? Nah. All you need is a WordPress install somewhere.

Here is how I implemented it:

Optional: Set up a (sub)domain for your payments. I put my payments on a seperate subdomain from my website (payments.createdbydanielle.com) for various reasons, but you can integrate it with your website completely if you want. The steps below assume you will have a WordPress install dedicated to your Stripe payments.

1. Get an SSL certificate. I got mine included with my hosting plan at WebhostingPad, but you can get one for as little as $20 / year at the SSL Shop.

(Note: don’t skip the certificate! I recently got a candid demonstration on how easy it is to sniff out unencrypted internet traffic. You don’t want to be the site that got your clients skimmed!)

2. If you haven’t already: install WordPress on your payments (sub)domain. (Not going to elaborate on this one 😉 )

3. Select a theme that fits your branding. I used the same theme as my main website at createdbydanielle.com. This is a major advantage, because it makes the payment gateway more trustworthy to my clients. But you could use any professional looking theme, and add your logo and colours to make sure your clients know it’s yours.

4. Install this plugin. To accept user-entered amounts (and payments in multiple currencies) it will cost $29. For the time and money it will save you, it’s definitely worth the dough.

5. Create a page that explains how the payment gateway works and that it’s secure and all that.

6. Drop in the Stripe shortcode. This will create a button that your clients can use from anywhere in the world to pay you with Visa or MasterCard safely and instantly 🙂

2 Comments

Your post about Stripe for Freelancers was super helpful. The ssl site you mentioned though, WebhostingPad, could not sell me an ssl without having a domain name or hosting account. They recommended I speak with Rapidssl.com. I ended up going to thesslstore.com. It cost me $17.99 for one year.

Hi Nadav, times have changed a lot since I wrote this blog (I should updated it!). You went to the right place in the end – I have brought many through thesslsore.com in the past. Shortly, all SSL will be free! Thanks for comment. Danielle